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Author: MIchael and Bonnie Harvey

Welcome to Business Audio Theatre the Most Effective Onboarding Tool to Reduce Turnover and Increase Engagement   
Preserve Founders Legacy through Story Performed by Actors with Sound Effects and Music
DOES YOUR HISTORY, FOUNDING SPIRIT, & GUIDING PRINCIPLES GET LOST OVER TIME?

Does your growth result in specialization, turf battles, corporate malaise, costly employee turnover, and lack of engagement and loss of the big picture?
"Any company that works intentionally on their culture will like this product for on-boarding."
-Bill Higgs, Host, Culture Code Champions Podcast
"TRANSFORMATIONAL ! Tremendous potential for CEO's to tell their story in a new way!"
-Robert Reiss, Forbes Magazine
After building & selling the famous Barefoot Wine Brand and writing the NYT's Bestseller, The Barefoot Spirit, used in 60 schools of entrepreneurship, and after a decade of being trusted advisors to startups, buildups, and buildouts, Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey have developed Business Audio Theatre. As workplace culture experts, they believe the best way to increase engagement and reduce turnover is through story. They believe the best way to convey business story is through audio theatre provided to new employees on day one. Identification with the founders, their story, and their principles is the basis for identification. Identification is the basis for engagement. Engagement is the basis for longevity. Find out more! 

Watch C-Suite TV Interview with Taryn Winter Brill: 

Listen to The Barefoot Spirit from the C-Suite Library

Call: 707-484-1600

EMAIL: Sales@TheBarefootSpirit.com

 

 
Michael & Bonnie in Action:
 

 

1.5 minute: https://barefootspirit.wistia.com/medias/svuthvx4uy

2.5 minute: https://barefootspirit.wistia.com/medias/q1t21okz9f

3 minute: https://barefootspirit.wistia.com/medias/8y5btoyfrw

10 minute: https://barefootspirit.wistia.com/medias/8crj4p1hg9
|Welcome to Business Audio Theatre the Most Effective Onboarding Tool to Reduce Turnover and Increase Engagement   
Preserve Founders Legacy through Story Performed by Actors with Sound Effects and Music
DOES YOUR HISTORY, FOUNDING SPIRIT, & GUIDING PRINCIPLES GET LOST OVER TIME?

Does your growth result in specialization, turf battles, corporate malaise, costly employee turnover, and lack of engagement and loss of the big picture?
"Any company that works intentionally on their culture will like this product for on-boarding."
-Bill Higgs, Host, Culture Code Champions Podcast
"TRANSFORMATIONAL ! Tremendous potential for CEO's to tell their story in a new way!"
-Robert Reiss, Forbes Magazine
After building & selling the famous Barefoot Wine Brand and writing the NYT's Bestseller, The Barefoot Spirit, used in 60 schools of entrepreneurship, and after a decade of being trusted advisors to startups, buildups, and buildouts, Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey have developed Business Audio Theatre. As workplace culture experts, they believe the best way to increase engagement and reduce turnover is through story. They believe the best way to convey business story is through audio theatre provided to new employees on day one. Identification with the founders, their story, and their principles is the basis for identification. Identification is the basis for engagement. Engagement is the basis for longevity. Find out more! 

Watch C-Suite TV Interview with Taryn Winter Brill: 

Listen to The Barefoot Spirit from the C-Suite Library

Call: 707-484-1600

EMAIL: Sales@TheBarefootSpirit.com

 

 
Michael & Bonnie in Action:
 

 

1.5 minute: https://barefootspirit.wistia.com/medias/svuthvx4uy

2.5 minute: https://barefootspirit.wistia.com/medias/q1t21okz9f

3 minute: https://barefootspirit.wistia.com/medias/8y5btoyfrw

10 minute: https://barefootspirit.wistia.com/medias/8crj4p1hg9
|Welcome to Business Audio Theatre the Most Effective Onboarding Tool to Reduce Turnover and Increase Engagement   
Preserve Founders Legacy through Story Performed by Actors with Sound Effects and Music
DOES YOUR HISTORY, FOUNDING SPIRIT, & GUIDING PRINCIPLES GET LOST OVER TIME?

Does your growth result in specialization, turf battles, corporate malaise, costly employee turnover, and lack of engagement and loss of the big picture?
"Any company that works intentionally on their culture will like this product for on-boarding."
-Bill Higgs, Host, Culture Code Champions Podcast
"TRANSFORMATIONAL ! Tremendous potential for CEO's to tell their story in a new way!"
-Robert Reiss, Forbes Magazine
After building & selling the famous Barefoot Wine Brand and writing the NYT's Bestseller, The Barefoot Spirit, used in 60 schools of entrepreneurship, and after a decade of being trusted advisors to startups, buildups, and buildouts, Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey have developed Business Audio Theatre. As workplace culture experts, they believe the best way to increase engagement and reduce turnover is through story. They believe the best way to convey business story is through audio theatre provided to new employees on day one. Identification with the founders, their story, and their principles is the basis for identification. Identification is the basis for engagement. Engagement is the basis for longevity. Find out more! 

Watch C-Suite TV Interview with Taryn Winter Brill: 

Listen to The Barefoot Spirit from the C-Suite Library

Call: 707-484-1600

EMAIL: Sales@TheBarefootSpirit.com

 

 
Michael & Bonnie in Action:
 

 

1.5 minute: https://barefootspirit.wistia.com/medias/svuthvx4uy

2.5 minute: https://barefootspirit.wistia.com/medias/q1t21okz9f

3 minute: https://barefootspirit.wistia.com/medias/8y5btoyfrw

10 minute: https://barefootspirit.wistia.com/medias/8crj4p1hg9

Categories
Growth Personal Development

3 Steps to Prevent Growth from Ruining Your Business

‘Growth’, ‘expansion’, or ‘buildout phase’, whatever you want to call it, is the most dangerous time for your business. But outsiders think your business has to be successful since it’s growing. Isn’t it ironic? The expansion itself can destroy your business.

Before the buildout phase, your business had finally reached its first stage of shaky sustainability. You were finally able to pay your bills, and not with investors’ money, but with your revenue—imagine that! You had finally scored a few big clients who helped you achieve positive cashflow for the first time since your launch. Your business had been built up to a point where you proved your stance in the market, and some stability did result, even if only for a little while.

Then, you realized those few big clients that you relied on and were so proud of, actually had you over a barrel. You had all your eggs in one basket. Any of those clients could dictate your terms, or even worse—they could’ve stopped buying, putting you out of business then and there. But, lucky for you, you listened to your salespeople and accountant, who agreed you were stuck in a precarious position—until you found new clients to lessen the risk of financial disruption or coercion.

Given all of that, you decided to expand! You wanted more customers so that you couldn’t be held hostage by just one customer. You chose to protect your revenue with more sources of income. But then what? You hit a wall! Just like so many other buildout companies, you were slammed with overhead and costs you never saw coming. You learned the heard way. Not about the cost of goods, but the cost of sales!

We’ve learned that sales is the number one underestimated cost in business. These costs were absorbed under “general” overhead before the expansion phase. They were spread out. But once you begin to move into new markets, these costs become more and more obvious.

You are now stuck. If you borrow cash for expansion, how long is it going to take to pay off the loan? And if you sell equity to fund growth, how much control will you need to give up? And, most importantly, what are the costs of buildout, anyway? Are they the same across all markets? Can you recognize them ahead of time? And can you cashflow your way to growth?

The implications of expansion are various. Here are 3 simple steps to survive this “Build Out or Blow Out” challenge to your company:

1. Supply. You’ll need extended terms and credit from your big suppliers. If you already have a collaborative partnership with them from your buildup phase, they’ll be more likely to extend these to you. You’ve shown sympathy for them by letting them know ahead of time if you’d be late or short on your payments. You have demonstrated and accomplished payment plans to get and stay current. You’ve shared your plans for growth on a quarterly basis. Through a long-term contract, you’ve given them the security that you’ll stay a loyal customer even after you “make it.” You’ve done these things the whole time, right?

2. Sales Cost Analysis. Your cost accountant has not only identified the cost of goods, but also the cost of sales in several different They have taught you about the probable advantages and disadvantages of specific markets. You took their advice, and created an expansion plan based on a strategy for revenue growth. You first started in the most profitable markets, because they cost the least to compete in. You and your cost accountant, together, have recognized and understood the cost of sales, and how they change from territory to territory. These include (but are not limited to) promotions, advertising, transportation, taxes, fees, representation, merchandising, customer service, discounting, presentations, and the list goes on. You wouldn’t expand into your next territory until the first one pays for itself, right?

3. Incentives and Compensation. Finally, you’ve figured out that you can’t expect expansion by paying your sales team on volume alone. In fact, you can’t really grow without an annually renewed compensation package based on new, higher goals. You understand what growth means in terms of business health and practicality, and now you’ve created a system that rewards your people for growth, reorders, and new markets. You’ve established incentives for those who aren’t on your payroll, who can foster your growth. You’ve chosen to take a smaller piece from a larger pie!

Of course, there is so much more to this tricky expansion business. Just remember to avoid over-extending yourself, grow slowly, make strategic alliances, and take note of what it actually costs to make a sale, service a sale, and keep ‘em coming. Work closely with your suppliers and a cost accountant, and follow a practical strategy so you can build out and not blow out! Remember—you can do this! Right?

For more, read on: http://c-suitenetworkadvisors.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/

Categories
Best Practices Marketing Personal Development

The Real Cost of Buying Into ‘Algo-logic’

We’ve found ourselves in a world where what’s important is predetermined by a simplistic form of artificial intelligence—algorithmic “logic”. It only measures what it’s able to measure.

Since it can’t measure the content’s quality, it measures the amount of response the post, article, video, or podcast gets. This is measured in number of comments, “likes”, or shares. The algorithm assumes that, somehow, engagement determines quality.

Slowly, you may find yourself buying into this naïve and over-generalized rating system because there is nothing better. It seems like everyone else is hopping on this bandwagon too, so you feel validated. This is your first mistake.

Eventually, you start to believe that quality is a hierarchy of engagement. It’s the only system to rely on, after all. Or at least the most popular! But do these algorithms really have the smarts to understand true quality?

Or, on the other hand, can true quality be inhibited by lack of engagement? Even worse, can we be manipulated once we buy into this system? Can crafty digital marketers work the system to create fake statistics, making certain content seem more important to sell you things that don’t work? Absolutely!

In other words, we now vote on what’s important at the expense of critical thinking. Do earlier actions of engagement push content at us at the expense of material that could be more thoughtful, wiser, and overall more valuable to the human experience? Yep!

This is an attractive process where it’s easy to get carried away with trendy distractions at the expense of hard-won lessons in history. Are there better and more important indicators of value than early engagement? We certainly think so. And we worry that those indicators can get lost.

Are smartphones really that smart? Or have we dumbed down to what they can measure? Now, don’t get us wrong—we love this new technology and can’t live without it. But we must constantly work around overly simple algorithms.

For example, we love Pandora, but we have to get around their algorithms to listen to the kind of music we like. Seems like everyone’s workaround is different due to the overly simplistic algorithms. Our friend, Bill, says, “I spend the first few days listening to everything they play on a given station. I quickly hit the likes and dislikes so I don’t get too much of their simplistic idea of what I like.” On the other hand, our friend, Mary, says, “I only hit the ones I dislike so I still get variety without getting into a rut.”

Mary and Bill are dealing with assumptions some programmers made about what’s important. If the song Bill chose first was sung by a woman, they give him all female artists next. Never mind the lyrics, melody, or beat. Bill knows that, and jumps on his next choice to prevent this from happening. But the more active Bill is with his choices, the fewer new offerings, because of the algorithm’s limits. Mary understands this, and only tells Pandora what she dislikes.

How many people enjoy a post without engaging? Most! But does that make the post less newsworthy, less important, or just plain wrong? Algorithms are unable to measure the silent majority—they are silent! They can only measure feedback that’s, well, measurable.

So, now a potential troll farm or minority can manipulate the algorithms and your thinking. They may even lead you to allow or take action because you think it’s what the majority wants. But it’s not. It’s what the programmers say is important because it’s all they can measure.

If this all seems like a call to return to critical thinking, it is! Let’s consider the source as we move on into the New Year.

Our 100-year-old neighbor says, “When airplanes first came out, they’d walk on the wings, light ‘em on fire, and fly ‘em through barns! Nobody ever thought they’d be going to Chicago in one.” Is this where we are now with the algorithms that control what gets pushed in social media? Are we still in the barnstorming phase?

Let’s not dumb ourselves down to what algorithms can measure! Let’s elevate classic standards, proven principles, and history—even if they don’t get a lot of ‘likes’. We’ve had enough cute puppies and mug cakes! It’s time to move on to what actually matters.

You don’t have much time. Don’t be tricked into believing that engagement alone is a measure of value to you, your community, or your business. For example, we don’t get much engagement on our 2 weekly posts and we know why. Our readers simply don’t have the time—they’re businesspeople!

However, our content is often picked up by major business publications such as the C-Suite Network, Entrepreneur, and the Business Journals in 43 cities. People reply to our newsletter and say, “Awesome,” “Please keep these coming,” and “I can’t wait to try this in my own business.” We have only had 2 unsubscribe in 4 years. Click here to see the best of our 30 years of successful business experience. But don’t feel like you have to engage. We’re happy to help!

For more, read on: http://c-suitenetworkadvisors.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/

Categories
Best Practices Marketing Personal Development

Design Your Brand’s Logo, Catchphrase, and Name to Have Even More Impact

When many people think of CPG branding, they think of brand logos, names, and catchphrases. Even though there’s so much more to successful branding, like merchandising, distribution, packaging, and positioning, it’s the logo, name, and slogan that are most memorable.

After designing what has become the world’s most recognized wine brand, we can speak for hours about these 3 cornerstones of a CPG brand! What did we learn on our way up that made Barefoot Wine such an iconic brand?

Well, for one thing, most of what’s behind the Barefoot logo, name, and catchphrase were created to address particular conditions that already existed in the market. They weren’t some kind of isolated artistic masterpiece. We were extremely limited by the marketplace, and we understood that we didn’t have much freedom. Now, we recommend that our clients thoroughly understand the mindset and environment of everyone in the market distribution system even before they come up with their “cool idea.”

In our case, and in the average CPG’s case, our logo, name, and catchphrase were created to emphasize these below realities:

1. Poor Lighting. Unlike your backlit phone screen, stores are lit with blue casting light from above (because it’s not expensive). Your brand may be completely unlit in the back of the shelf, where your first products have sold off. This restricts your options to shapes and colors that can be noticed in poor lighting. Unlike you and your buddies who could think your idea looks “cool” 12 inches away on your phone screen, your customers could be 5 feet away!

2. Physical Packaging. Your logo and brand name exist on a physical package with its own topography—not on a sheet of paper or a screen. We placed our label on a rounded bottle. This way, only a small part of the label was actually legible in its stationary position. Despite our labels being 3.5 inches wide, just over 2 inches across could be read without rotating the bottle. Boxes, display racks, and blister packs have their own unique limitations.

3. Short Attention Spans. If you’re lucky, you’ll only get a couple seconds to make an impression. Your brand is one of thousands trying to catch the attention of all buyers. For example, your consumer could be confused by all the choices in the store, unable to pick out your brand, or be walking by so quickly that they don’t even see it. Or, maybe they just forgot your logo and/or brand name altogether.

Before we finished the Barefoot Wine label design, we gained “friends in low places.” This isn’t to speak badly of these guys, but instead to praise them. They gave us the realistic and honest insight that only stockers, warehouse people, store clerks, and truck drivers can. Through their experience, they knew what worked and what didn’t—and why.

Here’s the advice we offer our clients about logos, brand names, and catchphrases:

1. Your Brand Name. Make it in simple English, no longer than 3 syllables, and make it relate to your consumer. Make sure it’s easy to pronounce, easy to read, and, most importantly, easy to remember. It should create a mental image and a feeling that people will relate to and identify with. Pick a name that’s related to your product. Think about the feeling they’ll get from using it, or a special attribute. We picked “Barefoot” because of the original winemaking process that involved crushing grapes with bare feet. Plus, being barefoot evokes a fun, recreational image.

2. Your Logo. Make it simple, impossible to forget, and have it mirror your brand name, if at all possible. Your logo should be sharp and clean. Avoid vagaries and curlicues. Consider the surface it will be applied to. Think about the position and lighting where it will be displayed. Make sure it’s completely legible from 4 feet away. Leave plenty of white space on the label around your logo. If possible, make it an everyday, recognizable object so it seems familiar. We went with the image of a bare foot, to mirror the name.

3. Your Catchphrase. Make sure it persuades your customer to buy your product by inducing a positive feeling or solving a problem. Perhaps it has to do with the feeling consumers get when they use your products, the way they use them, or the benefits and results of your brand. It should be short and sweet. Aim for a double meaning, or try creating a rhyme. Keep it fun! And make sure a unique aspect of your brand is conveyed. Try to keep it under 10 words—shorter is better. Use an identifier—“Ants Be Gone” or “Everyone’s Favorite!”—or use a call to action or conjunction. We went with “Get Barefoot and Have a Great Time!”

When creating your brand’s name, catchphrase, and logo, don’t forget the marketplace’s strict limitations. Recognize and understand these limitations before you raise it up on the flagpole!

For more, read on: http://c-suitenetworkadvisors.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/

Categories
Growth Personal Development

The 4 Phases of Business Development Need Different Strategies for Brand Growth and Survival

As your CPG brand grows and develops, it will move through 4 different stages. It’s essential to your brand’s survival to recognize the stage you’re in, and what each one requires before you get there and hit a brick wall.

Understanding what to do and what to look for in each stage well in advance can provide the tools you’ll need to get through the imminent challenges ahead. To ease these challenges, you must take steps now!

To begin, understand that CPG brand-building, unlike personal and digital product brand-building, depends on sales of your physical branded product. It must be available for sale on a constant basis. If your product is out of stock, your brand-building efforts will be damaged. This could ruin your reputation for reliability, and not to mention destroy your brand image.

You might say you’ll sell your product online and never run out of stock. But most CPG brands want to be in brick-and-mortar retailers. According to the Department of Commerce, 90% of all retail sales still come from physical stores!

Your goal should be to get into multiple chain stores. Each store pays you with one big check for one big purchase to get your brand in several stores, in front of many customers at once. Quantity purchases are the quickest way your product will get discovered, and it’s how profit will grow most efficiently. All of this requires vigilant distribution management.

Let’s take a look at each stage and discuss the challenges to your brand, and how to overcome them.

1. You’re about to launch your company or you’ve just recently launched. You’re running on your investors’ money, or your own savings.

  • The Risk: Sales don’t happen fast enough. You run out of money before achieving a positive cash flow.
  • Overcome: Even before launch, understand what everyone in the retail and distribution process needs from your logo, brand, label, and package design. Understand how you will gain market access—where is the low-hanging fruit sales-wise?

2. You launched! You have now secured a handful of good customers who are paying your bills.

  • The Risk: All your eggs are in one basket. Any interruption now could mean the death of your brand.
  • Overcome: Get more customers—quick! Even if they’re small, the combined sales could offset a sudden interruption by a larger customer. Resist any temptation to create your product for a store’s generic brand—they’ll play you off against a producer that charges a few cents less.

3. Now that you have a positive cash flow, you’re expanding into new markets. You’re gaining new customers.

  • The Risk: At this point, most businesses fail. It’s easy to spread yourself too thin here. You might’ve drastically underestimated the cost of sales, and the cost of customer retention.
  • Overcome: Start slow. Make small, manageable mistakes. Learn the real cost of services and sales before expansion. Develop one market at a time, and carefully. One market may cost you more than another—leave those for later. Learn only what’s needed.

4. You’ve expanded! You’re making larger sales—regularly! You’re starting to become a major player. You negotiate supply costs due to scale efficiencies.

  • The Risk: Your company now has strict labor divisions with areas that specialize in many types of work. This seems more efficient, but your people are now less engaged. Sales are taken for granted. Your people become isolated and unaffected by sales. Your branded product becomes less and less relevant to the market—you’re in danger of getting knocked off by the competition, who has a more relevant product.
  • Overcome: Boost customer service and sales to the very top of your business. Recognize and appreciate the crucial role they play in your brand’s success. Develop official lines of communication directly from sales to marketing and production, so they can stay ahead of any market changes, your competition, and consumer feedback.

It’s quite the rocket you’re riding! Realize and understand what each stage means to your success—be prepared in advance!

Happy Sales in 2018!

For more, read on: http://c-suitenetworkadvisors.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/

Categories
Marketing Personal Development

Boost Brand-Building Online with Physical Distribution

These days, we spend a lot of money and time on online brand-building. There are tons of marketers online that promise to revamp your sales. They’ll write copy, buy you social media ads, and build you funnels. But who does all this go to? A massive population at the very top of the funnel. You’d be lucky to get 2% buy in. Seems inefficient, doesn’t it?

This could be fine for selling digital products, personal branding, and even personal services, but when it comes to consumer packaged goods (CPG), the effort isn’t nearly as effective as starting with good physical distribution.

Many consumer brand-builders decide to sell their products online, not because they want to, but because they have to. Retailers won’t take them! So, they try to execute the same type of campaigns that seem to be successful for personal brands. If you have a lot of money for TV ads, it may rub off as support for your online efforts. But now you’re breaking the bank, and your ROI is in jeopardy.

On the other hand, online consumer brand promotions that are already in retail can see a handsome ROI, since the consumer has already seen the brand. We notice that, before making their first purchase, consumers will be aware of a brand after several visits to the store. Online promotion can shorten that time by making the consumer more familiar with your brand’s benefits and features by offering incentives or by providing third-party endorsements. But it must be at retail first!

Most importantly, an online initiative can provide where-to-buys. Your field salespeople can use this to promote displays and specials in physical stores.

So why not sell online in addition to in-store? To put it simply, retailers won’t go near it if it’s one cent less anywhere online than what they can sell it for. This is why many consumer brand-builders list a purposely inflated price—just to make room for the retailer.

Think about subscription models, like the Dollar Shave Club for example. They’re somewhat successful, but how many subscriptions does a consumer want to get the hundreds of products they need? How often do they want their deliveries? What if they miss one? Eventually, one trip to the retailer seems like the better option.

In retail, the new trend is to go to the store, pick out what you want, and have the items delivered same-day. This is kind of a mash-up between physical choice, personalized attention, and instant gratification. Or, like at Target, Walmart, and many other retailers, you can order online and pick the items up in-store without paying a delivery fee. This reduces the store’s need to carry large inventories by satisfying specific consumer orders for on-demand products.

Even with the above changes and many more to come, ensuring physical distribution is the easiest way for people to find you. It’s the best way to utilize online promotion. But, it’s the most difficult challenge that consumer brand builders face. So why do it, then? Because the best discovery, volume, and large transactions that keep CPG business going are still at retail.

And there’s no magic formula. Getting on the shelf isn’t the real challenge. The real challenge is staying on the shelf! Don’t take your first big break lightly. But, if you can get in at retail level and then get discontinued (possibly due to your unfamiliarity of how to service your customers), the entire industry will know. Your competition will be happy to warn others not to purchase your “non-starter.” Make sure your first few shots at retail give you the reputation of a “hot mover.” You’ll need that to expand your distribution!

Then, once you put all that money into promotion and online ads, it’ll have somewhere to go—into the store, where customers have seen that brand before!

To help you out, we’ve created a course called Shelf Smarts. Check it out! Discover how you can get your product on the shelf, and keep it there!

For more, read on: http://c-suitenetworkadvisors.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/

 

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Leadership Personal Development

The 4 Core Proficiencies of the Barefoot Startup

If you’ve survived the entrepreneurial process from idea generation to capital generation and you were asked to sum it up into core principles, what would you say? Where would you start? We were met with this exact challenge. Clients, business associates, and our employees insisted that we should break our journey into its fundamental parts and elaborate on those parts. We tossed ideas around for a year, thinking about how to get these principles across to startups.

Thinking about why so many startups fail seemed to be a good starting point. What did they have in common? In what areas were most of the “failures” incompetent? To our surprise, each of them was incompetent in at least one of the 4 key areas. That led us to focus on and prioritize them in The Barefoot Startup’s GPS (Guiding Principles for Success). Here’s a brief synopsis:

1. Cash Flow Management. Here, your goal is to reduce the need for capital. Do you know how to distinguish and utilize your “hidden” assets? Ideally, your buyers might pay you before you have to pay for overhead and supplies. This is possible, but for most of us, juggling is necessary! And, before we pay ourselves, we must spend every cent on the bills. This is why minimizing overhead, outsourcing, and pay-as-you-go are crucial. This is why frugality and revenue are necessary. No matter the amount, revenue must be established before you ask for investors’ money. Do you know how to create strategic partnerships with your buyers and suppliers, to decrease your need for capital?

2. Monetization Strategy. It might sound crazy, but many startups never ask the all-important question, “Why are we doing this anyway?” Is it a legacy? Is it a lifestyle? Or is it to make money on brand equity? If you’re looking at an eventual merger, public offering, or acquisition, the first steps of your journey are key to your survival. They will determine plans for expansion and how your brand equity is maximized. This means your goods or services must be accessible, and that your business can operate without you. It means your files mirror your acquirer’s due diligence. It also means that you understand and create the milestones and metrics necessary to become an acquisition target, or, as we like to say, “Get your peanut in front of the elephant!”

3. Personnel Management. Here, your goal is to reduce turnover, the top hidden cost of business, and to empower and inspire your employees. Finding good people and building great people are covered in our video mentioned above. In our opinion, it’s necessary to overdo it during orientation from the first day to show where the money comes from, including all the jumps and hurdles it must pass over and through to get to them. Paying for performance inspires better performance. Paying employees hourly encourages more time spent at work, not necessarily leading to productivity. Publicly appreciating a job well done, encouraging innovation and creativity, and nurturing a culture of permission are undeniably crucial to a supportive and productive team. Share challenges with the whole staff on a know-the-need basis, rather than a need-to-know basis. This helps on-the-fly problem solving by unlocking your personnel assets!

4. Distribution management. Do you know how to get your product on the market? More importantly, do you know how to keep it there? Distribution encompasses everything from supply chain management to sales. And, sales is not just to your end consumer, but also to your people, then your B2B customer, then their B2C customer, and finally to your (and their) end-user. Knowing, understanding, and delivering what everyone in the chain needs can be the difference between market access and being shut out. A failure to understand the true cost of sales is the principal reason why so many startups fail. Start small. Make small mistakes. Learn from them, and get yourself together before you go large. Don’t move fast to lose fast! 

Interested? These 4 core principals, so often disregarded, are so critical that we spend a whole hour on each of them in our video course, The Barefoot Startup’s GPS (Guiding Principles for Success). Check it out and see for yourself!

For more, read on: http://c-suitenetworkadvisors.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/

Categories
Best Practices Growth Leadership Personal Development

Is a Knowledge-Hungry Crowd Ready for Wisdom At Last?

Is your inbox full of marketers pandering to your need for quick knowledge to “solve” an urgent problem at hand? Is your social media feed loaded with ads that promise six digits in six months, and all from your cellphone! “Just follow these easy steps,” they say, “and you too will be successful!”

With an overload of information at your fingertips, it’s easy to believe that anything you want to know is accessible—right now. “There’s an app for that,” has grown into “There’s a copy-and-paste process for that.” But is that knowledge alone enough? Just find, copy, and paste, and everything’s taken care of. Right?

By the time you see that this quick fix doesn’t get you what you want, the damage is already done. You’re out both the time you invested and fees you paid. You learn that the knowledge you gained wasn’t sufficient for the result you pictured.

Since you were unintentionally “trained” by the very cut-and-paste process itself, to copy examples, it’s easy to miss the value behind those examples. When you learned that process, were you aware of the commonness of principles that could apply to another situation? You might say, “It doesn’t matter if there’s an overriding principle. I’ll just copy and paste a new example whenever I need one. Then I’ll never have to learn the principle behind it!”

To recognize and appreciate those overriding principles, it’s important to have a solid foundation in the basics. But this may take longer than you’d anticipated. You might need to learn a few things that don’t immediately relate to the problem at hand. That takes time, too. So, you skip that, and instead apply the process without the principles. Your knowledge is without wisdom. You have the ‘how’ but not the ‘why’.

The marketer, the politician, and the preacher, however, are happy you’re impatient and want easy, quick answers. After all, it’s easier to sell a process than a philosophy. It’s easier to sell an extraordinary headline than a textbook. And it’s easier to disregard and blame minorities when you just want a simple answer. Essentially, it’s easier to manipulate you if you’re dumbed down by today’s over-simplified approach to knowledge.

Why does the “crowd” keep making so many mistakes when all this knowledge is readily available? Despite being hungry for knowledge, the crowd proves time and time again they are easily manipulated. Impatience is their weakness—they can be easily frightened.

Sourcing the crowd for directional help is one thing, but sourcing them for instant decisions that influence our societal behavior is another.

To put it simply, is the crowd knowledgeable enough to rule directly? Will they be manipulated by advertisements that play into their doubts? Will they choose one demigod after another on the search for a quick fix without ever understanding why our government uses checks and balances? Will they allow environmental degradation to happen while they are mesmerized by the latest trending story?

Without healthy skepticism, patience, and a desire for principle over process, the crowd limits themselves to reporting status. While this is very helpful, the crowd must embrace principle over example, history over headline, and strategy over tactics before they can be relied on for guidance.

We’ve never had so much information at our disposal. But, we are all still new at this. How many catastrophes will it take for the crowd to gain necessary long-term wisdom, and then use it sensibly without being corrupted by ease of access? Real wisdom takes patience. Will we give it the patience it deserves?

If you think this sounds like an advertisement for classical education, well, it is! Until the crowd appreciates the basics, the big picture, and the effects of its own sporadic stampedes, it will have to resort to telling you where the next road danger is, or the room for rent.

For more, read on: http://c-suitenetworkadvisors.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/

Categories
Best Practices Growth Leadership Personal Development

7 Ways to Overcome Adversity: Don’t Let Fear Stop You or Force Impulsive Decisions

At his 1932 inaugural address, deep in the Great Depression, FDR said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” It’s only natural to feel uncertain, anxious, and apprehensive when you think about possible negative outcomes of any business venture. It’s easy to get caught up in the latest initiative, worry about sales, or freak out about the growing pile of bills. So why should we relax in the face of these constant threats to your enterprise. The main reason is survival.

A consciousness of fear tends to create tunnel vision when our fight-or-flight response takes over. The obvious path to the best solution can disappear when we’re blinded by negative emotion. In our anxiety to solve a problem quickly and move on, we can easily make the wrong decision. Many of our worst decisions were made in a state of distress.

If you’re in business, doubts and threats to your success are everywhere. And they won’t go away. Absolute catastrophes will happen now and then. Your financial survival is on the line. In business, sudden problems are the norm. The sooner you understand this, the quicker you can develop a “bulletproof” approach necessary to contain, cope, and crush these challenges.

1. It’s difficult, especially when the solution isn’t visible. We know. But take a break, take a deep breath, or take a walk. Give yourself the time to calm down. Your brain will operate better. You’ll be more aware of choices that are easily missed when you’re uptight.

2. Believe that there is a solution, even though you can’t see it yet. Better yet, believe there are multiple solutions for you to choose from. This way, you won’t be as likely to pick the first one you see, which would solve the immediate problem, but could lead to bigger issues down the line.

3. An elegant solution solves many problems. To find the elegant solution, set all your problems out in front of you. Examine them, and see how they’re related. Is there a solution that solves more than one of your problems? With an open mind, and without preconceptions, search for the clues.

4. How do you know who your allies are? Focus on who benefits (besides you) when the problem is solved. They could be associates, buyers, suppliers, investors, employees, or even competitors! Can you solve their problem at the same time as your own? Think about how you can recruit their support in solving your problem, and how they would benefit.

5. It takes time to cool down, evaluate your options, consider the consequences, and receive good guidance. It takes time to recognize your allies and earn their support. And it takes time to think about the results and make compromises. Just be patient.

6. Ask for help from those with diverse experience, or more experience, than your own. Consult people who work in different areas of your industry. Ask for help from those at the highest and lowest levels. Consider other industries, and how they approach similar problems. Maybe their solution could be useful in solving your problem. Most people will be honored and flattered that you asked for their advice.

7. The quickest way out of a box is straight up. Evaluate your problem from all sides—over, under, left, and right. Ask yourself: “Am I even framing the problem correctly? Can I redefine the situation?” Many times, your best solution is inside your best statement of the problem.

Knowing that you have a process in place to tackle your intimidating challenges will give you the confidence you need. Fear can blind you when you need your foresight, vision, and focus the most.

When we freaked out about the latest emergency, we all had to laugh when Bonnie screamed, “For God’s sake, DON’T PANIC!”

For more, read on: http://c-suitenetworkadvisors.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/

Categories
Growth Personal Development

Product and Brand: What’s the Difference?

The words “product” and “brand” are sometimes used interchangeably. But we think there’s a great difference between the two. A product is simply the item for sale. A brand is the combination of the label, image, logo, promise, positioning, and overall reputation. A product without a brand is generic, and typically sold in bulk. Once that product has a brand, however, the product itself and its provided customer experience affect the brand promise, brand image, and reputation.

This goes double for brands with physical products. The brand is judged by the branded product. It isn’t the only factor, but it can make or break customers’ experience. Their experience with the packaging, logo, label, price, position, and accessibility directly influence the brand’s image, reputation, and promise. For example, if the branded physical product is out of stock when a loyal customer wants it, the brand’s image is tarnished. The brand is no longer dependable. This happens even if the situation is the retailer’s or distributor’s fault.

Likewise, when your consumer thinks the price is too high, your brand image is hurt. Your customer thinks, “This is supposed to be the same quality product for the same price I paid last time, but now they want more!” They might feel required to warn friends or colleagues to whom they had previously suggested your brand. But the price increase may have been a desire on the retailer’s behalf to make more off of your product. Or maybe the retailer wants to sell their store brand, thus returning more profit, and drive traffic away from your product. Still, in the consumer’s eyes, it’s your brand’s fault.

There are many ways the brand producer can harm their brand: removing quality markers in the name of cost reduction, productivity, or conforming to corporate formats, which your customer sees as devaluing the brand’s image; making drastic changes to the logo or label for “change’s sake” which confuses the customer; diminishing the product’s quality to “increase profit margins,” which hurts the brand’s value perception and quality. The producer can also cut their own sales by doing things that hurt the environment, labor, or the community—this all reflects poorly on the brand’s image.

So, in the branded product arena, the product and how it’s perceived are still the main features of brand building. Keeping your distribution channel open and moving are essential to the brand’s feel of dependability. The product’s pricing, shape, packaging, size, labeling, contents, and availability represent what the consumer thinks of the brand.

This is why we highly emphasize retail merchandising and distribution of physical product brands. So what if your website looks great, or if your persuasive slogan and logo are matched on your baseball hats, envelopes, and stationery—It doesn’t matter if you let the consumer down.

Real brand building takes true responsibility for your branded product once it leaves your hands. Active support, observance, and care at every point in the distribution channel are all essential to building your brand. Your brand’s image is only as good as your customer’s experience and your physical product. If it’s good, they applaud your brand. But if it’s bad, they blame your brand!

For more, read on: http://c-suitenetworkadvisors.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/

Categories
Growth Operations Personal Development

5 Steps for Physical Product Brands to Stay Relevant

The people who handle “complaints” about your company’s branded products are full of useful info. We always thought of customer service as customer intelligence, or “customer intel,” rather than “complaint resolution”.

But if you operate in a top-down structure, it’s easy to see how you can miss out on this critical information. If you think that your product design comes first, then the marketing team comes up with a sales plan, then your salespeople implement that plan, then customer service handles complaints—that’s top-down. With this structure, you certainly wouldn’t want any challenges to your product crawling back up.

The effectiveness of customer service in many companies is actually judged by how few (or how many) complaints come back up the ladder.

In an attempt to address complaints at the customer service level, these companies are preventing the key communications that should crawl back up—they have the potential to improve your packaging, marketing, product, and even your confidence. When everyone working for you knows that your brand is relevant, current, and receptive, they are more likely to stay. Not only that—they are proud to be part of a business that values customer feedback, and quickly replies to keep them happy. This is how you stay ahead of the competition.

Use these 5 steps to make the most of what your customer service people know:

  1. Change the Plumbing. Install a permanent and formal “pipeline” between your “Customer Intel” and your Production, R&D, and Marketing folks. Make it required that any customer feedback received by Customer Intel is top priority. Actually, bring any new initiatives to them (and Sales) first, to get their input. This will prevent expensive failures in the marketplace.
  2. Change the Name. As we mentioned, calling it “Customer Intel” describes its function, and reiterates that nobody in your company outside of your sales team knows more about your customers’ experience than they do. And don’t keep this a secret! Make sure everybody knows it, and respects their crucial relationship with your customers.
  3. Change the Direction. Chose bottom-up instead of top-down. Put the customer on top! Entrepreneurs who started in a garage know that the customer is always at the top. It’s simple—if they don’t make sales, they’ll be out of business. So, it’s not how you get the entrepreneurial spirit—it’s how you lose it. And you lose it when products are pushed down to the customer.
  4. Change the Schedule. Every quarter, schedule a brainstorming session between Production, Marketing, and R&D on the one hand, and with Customer Intel and Sales on the other. Create an open forum where everyone can discuss customer comments, recommendations, and complaints; and where everyone can discover and implement ways to improve your marketing and products.
  5. Change the Conversation. Encourage Customer Intel to gather information about your customers’ experience that doesn’t have anything to do with their comment or complaint, but everything to do with making their experience better. They should ask: Where did you find our product? Was it fully stocked? Do you go to that store often? How was the price? Do you buy this product often? Does it meet your expectations? Did you get a good value for your money?

Make these changes today. Don’t let your customers complain, “It used to be my brand!”

Read more on: http://c-suitenetworkadvisors.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/